The group went looking for the basilisk nest, it should be close as the parents usually don’t leave their eggs unguarded!
Just like crocodiles, basilisks bury their egg in cold sand or mud until they hatch!
Just going through bushes and grass, looking for an area that seems to have been dug out. Even after looking for about an hour, they were able to find none, they were about to give up as Alice started to get exhausted.
“I give up, they’re nowhere to be seen! I wish Sylph was here to help!” Cain unintentionally said, he quickly realized what he just said and stopped talking.
“Who’s Sylph?” Alice asked, she was too close to him.
“An old friend, their ability was amazing for locating things!” Cain was grateful that humans can hardly distinguish elvish names! God knows what the girls might do if they knew she was a girl!
“An old friend…huh?” Alice got a bit suspicious yet she kept silent, there wasn’t any base for her concerns.
“KYA!!” They heard Sofia scream in the distance, she alerted all of them.
Cain, Selena, and Alice all rushed toward her expecting to see some big monster, or possibly the nest of those basilisks! Yet, they found nothing big.
When she was looking between the bushes she came face to face with a blue slime, the sight of small bones floating inside the creature’s gelatinous body scared her enough to scream like that!
“Just kill it with a firebolt, it’s close enough so you can’t miss!” Cain said, putting his sword back in its sheath. Slimes use acid which might damage their weapon, it was best to use magic against them.
[Firebolt] As was expected, the slime didn’t survive Sofia’s magic and died instantly leaving a core behind!
“For real, you scared us!” Alice complained, she was expecting something a bit more dangerous than a slime.
‘Let’s get back before noon, we might be able to take a second quest before the day ends!” Cain said he was also worried about leaving the basilisk corpses outside for too long as the eyes might get damaged.
“So, why did you pick this quest? do you have a purpose for it in mind?” Sofia asked, she was getting used to Cain having reasons for his actions.
“Traps, I wanted to create petrifying runes with the basilisk eyes as a medium! Those things are useful against large hordes of monsters!” Cain was aiming to create and spread them around the city in preparation for the catastrophe, the traps were more effective than soldiers as they can take a large chunk of the monsters at once!
On their way back they stopped by what seemed like a stall selling grilled meat, eating their fill for launch there before going to the guild.
Having a lot of time on their hands, Cain decided to take another quest. Counting the fight with Jack even though a lot of people were involved (Killing Jack took a lot of people, about nine people which meant the Exp was divided too much) and adding the basilisk now, with just another small push he is expecting both Alice and Sofia to level up, he will need another kill and Selena was way off as she was higher level!
There was a quest that Cain wanted to take, it was a good exp source but had severe mental damage, it was probably a good idea to keep the girls away from that for now! Now that he thought about it, he shouldn’t take that quest with them.
The quest was reassuring [Quest: Goblin slaying] Cain just didn’t want to remember the horror inside their dens, their mere existence is a slap in the face of everything good!
“What is it that you’re looking at?” Sofia asked taking a peek at the quest in front of Cain, she made a puzzled face.
“Goblin slaying? Should we take it, it seems easy enough!” She said happily thinking about how small goblins are. She could probably kill them with a single firebolt!
‘No! No!’ Cain’s mind was going ballistic ‘Don’t set a flag! Goblins are scarier than you think!’
“Goblins? I heard even children could take them out with a cane, I bet we can finish it quickly!” Alice said, putting her head on top of Cain’s shoulder.
“No, No! We shouldn’t take this quest, whether we win or lose, we’re going to end up having some scars anyway!” Cain said seriously, he did know how messed up the goblins are!
“Are you sure-nya? I’m pretty sure I can handle a couple of them alone. We should take this quest-nya!” Selena is also for it, it was hopeless for Cain.
Since all the girls are wanting to take it he can’t just stop them!
“Ok, well take the quest on a few conditions!” Cain said, being extremely serious.
The girls looked at him, waiting to hear what he has to say.
“You three will do whatever I say if anyone one of you disobeys I’m going to whack her! Believe me, it’s better than being whacked by goblins!” Cain was hoping they take his words seriously, goblin’s dens were a serious business!
They all nodded as if they understood!
“Second, you report any minor injury you have, even scratches! After each fight were going to use Alice’s holy healing on all of us. After we are done with the quest, we’re going to have a full-body check-up!” There was a reason for Cain’s concerns! Goblins are smart, they create poison using herbs and venom collected from insects and scatter it all over their dens!
If a person got scratched by a plant at the entrance, they might have been poisoned! The effects will only show days later when it’s already untreatable. Since the poison was made by combing a lot of weaker poisons, there was almost no cure for it!
The girls seemed a bit confused about it but they agreed anyway.
“Third, you only walk behind me!” It wasn’t poisoning alone, traps were a pain to deal with! trap falls, spikes, monsters, ambush, snipers… and all of them were soaked in poison!
The girls were starting to suspect something was off about the quest if Cain was this serious!
“Don’t show any mercy for the goblins, after you stab one, give a second stab just to be sure!” Goblins are smart enough to pretend to be dead and then backstab you! This has taken more lives than it should be!
“Selena, don’t ever, ever, ever! Claw or bite one of them, just use your knuckle dusters.” Cain looked at her dead in the eyes, he wasn’t messing around! All of the goblin’s armor and weapons were as well soaked in poison! And they were dirty as hell, probably having a million diseases on their disgusting skin!
“If you see a big one, don’t engage without me there! NO, don’t ever leave my side, to begin with!” Gang violence was one of the goblins’ primary strategies. The big ones are called hope goblins, they are a problem as they can be stronger than they look!
“Were burning the whole thing down after we slay all the goblins, be ready for that!” Cain said he didn’t want another clan of goblins to pillage the nest after they clear it!
“Cain, are you sure we need to be that cautious?” Sofia asked, she was feeling that Cain just making it seem worse than it should.
Cain just asked them to follow him to Mary’s desk, he wanted to show them something.
“Mary, do me a favor and show us the records of goblin quests done in the last year!” Cain asked, putting his hand on the table.
Mary couldn’t just take the record and show them to him, she didn’t have the authority to do that! “Sorry, but I can’t do that!” She replied with a forced smile.
“Come on, do me this favor! I promise to do you a favor in return!” He said, trying to convince her.
As she heard his words, a brilliant Idea rose in her head, “You promised, remember it well!” she said with a smug smile, She must have thought of something amazing!
Mary quickly pulled the records, Cain was only interested in the survival rate of those adventurers.
The goblin quests had a 90% success rate with a 10% mortality rate! It was high, but still within the expected boundary of adventuring!
“Now, Can you show us the survival rate of those adventurers in their next adventures?” Cain asked. Mary gave him a suspicious look before smiling again.
“It’s two favors now! Remember well!” Mary was thrilled to see Cain node at her, she had the face of a fisher who caught the biggest fish!
The documents came quickly and they were shocking!
Those adventurers had a mortality rate of 50% in the next 6 months! Mary’s eyes were wide open as she did the math again and again.
Those adventurers were killed in other quests but that didn’t it wasn’t because of the goblins! The goblin had two types of poison, a fast-acting one and a slow-acting one. Those adventurers died because they were weakened by the effects of the slow-acting poison!
Goblin quests were no joke, they were dreadful!